'Worst decade for UK productivity since Napoleon'

GreatApe

UK output per worker is not bad. France is about the same population as the UK

France total GDP output = 2,227 Billion Euro
UK total GDP output = £1,950 Billion Pounds

That means whenever the pound buys more than 1.14 Euro the UK is a bigger economy.
That means for most of the last five years the UK economy was larger than the French

The reason why our productivity per hour looks bad is a lot more of the UK workforce spend an extra few hours a week at work browsing amazon facebook rightmove mse.forum etc

buglawton

Is it because we've moved from being a nation of shopkeepers (to quote Napolean himself) to a nation of property spectators?

(And I do mean spectators not speculators, we let the foreign investors do that for us)

buglawton

GreatApe wrote: »

that is just misleading BS

Saying it takes the french 4 days to produce the same output as 5 days in the uk leads people into thinking the french produce 25% more goods and services so are 25% richer than the brits. That is simply wrong, the french just work less they dont produce more. The two countries are actually very close in output per worker with either France or the UK leading depending on the exchange rate. Last time I checked the uk was ahead on output per capita

We dont have a productivity problem, our output per worker is one of the best in the world and above most of the EU and more often than not (depending on the exchange rate) its above the french output levels. And the french have some big natural advantages like a hell of a lot more land.

Yep and we can save on heating the home while we spend more time at work.

buglawton

economic wrote: »

perhaps low paid jobs are good for those who require low paid workers such as cleaners, nurses, binmen etc? even though not a lot of tax is generated, since they are low paid it means more money left in the pocket who utilise low paid workers?

Are qualified nurses in the UK low paid, comparable alongside the unskilled workers you mentioned?

Out,_Vile_Jelly

economic wrote: »

Depends. You can be at work and have finished all the work and so it makes sense to utilise the time you have to be in the office for personal reasons like fb or online shopping.

I have the kind of job where I physically cannot proceed with large parts of it until key people respond to specific questions. That means I have gaps where I can use the internet, like now. Another part of the role is to be on hand to answer all manner of phone, email and walk-in queries; looking at bad tattoos online doesn't prevent me from instantly responding to these. Not all jobs are easily quantifiable in terms of productivity.